The travails of Manny Miranda show clearly
the proposition that the courts are in the business of legislating.
Any claims that judicial orders and decisions are part of the
rule of law are mostly pretense. Judges are simply politicians
wrapped in black robes and given the luxury of legislating without
accountability.

Until recently, Miranda, an attorney, was
serving as chief counsel to Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), Majority Leader
of the U.S. Senate. Before that, Miranda had served as counsel
to Sen. Orrin Hatch on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

While working at the Committee, a staffer
brought to Miranda's attention that memos of the then-majority
Democrats were available on a common server without any password
protection. The same was true for Republican memos. Miranda eventually
took an interest, mostly to find out when hearings would be held,
because the Democrats gave the Republicans almost no lead time
to prepare.

At one point Miranda's attention was drawn
to the talking points against Bush's judicial nominees prepared
for the Democrat Senators - often by outside interest groups such
as trial lawyers, abortion groups and civil rights groups. He
found that a former employee of the NAACP had gone to work for
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA). Working for Kennedy, Olati Johnson
wrote a memo suggesting that the confirmation hearing for Ohio
Supreme Court Justice Julia Smith Gibbons be delayed. Gibbons
had been nominated for a position on the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Sixth Circuit.

Kennedy and the Democrats held off the hearing
until after an affirmative action case (viewed as the most important
such case in 25 years) was decided by the Sixth Circuit. Why?
Gibbons was viewed as likely to vote against the liberals and
that would have tipped the decision the other way.

Isn't Kennedy's footdragging far more contemptible
than what Miranda did? After receiving a good deal of indignant
news coverage in the partisan press, Miranda was forced to resign
by Frist before the Senate Sergeant at Arms had even conducted
an investigation of hacking the Democrats' computer files. (How
one can hack a document that is posted in the open has yet to
be explained by Sen. Frist or anyone else.) That same partisan
press has not had a thing to say about the memo from the NAACP/Kennedy
aide Johnson.

Frist and Hatch had both promised Miranda
that if he "resigned," they would refocus the press coverage toward
the content of the Democrat memos. That promise has not been kept
- nor have those Senators even attempted to keep it.

In another "talking points" memo for Kennedy,
Jay Bybee, a nominee for the Ninth Circuit, was described as "awful."
Among his "shortcomings" was his opposition to gun control.

Miranda makes a very important observation.
Until the successful fight against confirming Texas Supreme Court
Justice Priscilla Owens to the Fifth Circuit, judicial battles
had been masked in procedural fights. Filibusters would be conducted
because a candidate was alleged to lack a judicial temperament
which was usually a code phrase for a nominee who thinks the Constitution
means what it says. The Owens nomination was blocked on openly
ideological grounds.

In other words, the memos, and now the public
record itself, make it impossible to believe that a judicial order
is necessarily a lawful order. Judicial orders and decisions will
usually be found upon inspection to be nothing more than legislating
by "legislators" who do not have to stand for reelection. Calling
these legislators judges confuses the issue.

Another question. Why does Congress allow
this to happen? The answer is, because a socialist agenda can
be imposed from the top down on an unwilling population with no
consequences for the elected office holders. Congress can blame
the courts and the courts can sit and smirk.

Voters had better start asking candidates
for the House of Representatives if they are willing to file resolutions
of impeachment against judges making unconstitutional rulings.
All federal candidates also need to be made to commit to using
Congress' constitutional powers to strip jurisdiction from federal
courts. If the courts cannot get involved in various issues, they
cannot legislate there at all.

Manny Miranda should be regarded as a national
hero. What the nation does with his gift will determine whether
we rein in the judiciary or continue to allow it to tyrannize
us.

Larry Pratt has been Executive Director of Gun
Owners of America for 27 years. GOA is a national membership organization
of 300,000 Americans dedicated to promoting their second amendment freedom
to keep and bear arms.

GOA lobbies for the pro-gun position in Washington
and is involved in firearm issues in the states. GOA's work includes providing
legal assistance to those involved in lawsuits with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, the federal firearms law enforcement agency.

Pratt has appeared on numerous national radio
and TV programs such as NBC's Today Show, CBS' Good Morning America, CNN's
Crossfire and Larry King Live, Fox's Hannity & Colmes, MSNBC's Phil Donahue
show and many others. He has debated Congressmen James Traficant, Jr.
(D-OH), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), Senator Frank
Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Vice President Al Gore, among others. His columns
have appeared in newspapers across the country.

He published a book, Armed People Victorious,
in 1990 and was editor of a book, Safeguarding Liberty: The Constitution
& Militias, 1995. His latest book, On the Firing Line: Essays in the Defense
of Liberty was published in 2001.

Pratt has held elective office in the state legislature
of Virginia, serving in the House of Delegates. Pratt directs a number
of other public interest organizations and serves as the Vice-Chairman
of the American Institute for Cancer Research.